Luck, Moral Guilt and Legal Guilt
The question of whether luck should play a role in our assessment of other people is fundamental to human society. Our judicial laws express the view that we are responsible for our actions-in other words, luck does have a bearing on the determination of legal guilt; since legal guilt is theoretically based on moral guilt, this means that luck is usually considered to have a bearing on moral guilt as well. However, there are serious difficulties with this system of judgment. Indeed, I believe that it is neither advantageous nor even logically plausible to accede to either side of this debate: simply admitting to one extreme (e.g., that luck should never be considered when assessing others, or vice versa) automatically creates a multitude of problems. If we do consider luck when assessing someone's moral character, we open ourselves to the very real possibility of punishing two people unequally for the same exact action or intention, which is incompatible with our notion of justice. Yet if we decide that luck should not be a factor, we are in effect embracing the notion that we are not responsible for our actions, and in such a case, punishment would be futile; without legal guilt and punishment, however, society would be chaotic, which again assaults our notion of justice. We shall see that this issue is closely tied in with the more general idea of free will vs. determinism, which itself is a fundamentally disturbing problem. As long as the free will debate remains inconclusive-as most people feel it is-so too will the debate over moral luck remain unresolved.
In order to examine this issue, it is beneficial to start with a specific example: consider a person who happens to ...
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... leads to chaos. Yet factoring in luck fails to punish those who are immoral but have good luck, while punishing only those who have bad luck. I maintain that a satisfactory answer to this question is impossible because, as I stated earlier, the issue of moral guilt in relation to luck is based heavily upon the idea of free will versus determinism, a problem which is fundamentally troublesome. With no clear way to decide the issue of free will vs. determinism, it is equally unclear how we should decide the issue of moral guilt. Should luck play a part in the assessment of a person's character? As I asserted at the start of this discussion, I believe that such a determination is logically implausible.
WORKS CITED
Nagel, Thomas. "Moral Luck." Reason and Responsibility, 9th edition. Joel Feinberg, ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996: 515-521.
World War 1 was a war that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and was a war that involved and was molded around alliances. This war in Europe would eventually turn into a global war that would involve 32 countries. United States involvement was crucial to the outcome of World War 1 and made a serious impact in our country. Both positive and negative effects were felt by Americans during and even long after the war. Mixed feelings were felt from many Americans for entering the war that would affect society.
A man is running late to work one day when he passes by a homeless person asking for help. This man and many others usually consider this particular man to be generous, but since he is late, he ignores the homeless person and continues on his way. One can assume that if he had the time, he would have helped. Does that matter, though, seeing as in that situation, he did not in fact help? Scenarios like this supports Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett’s idea that it is the situation that influences a person’s behavior, not he or she’s individual conscience. Although a person’s individual conscience could play a part in how one behaves in a given scenario, ultimately, the “situational variable” has more impact on the actions of the person than he or she’s morals.
There are two basic kinds of ethical judgments. The first have to do with duty and obligation. For example: "Thou shalt not kill, lie, or steal." "You just keep your promises." These judgments often uphold minimal standards of onduct and (partly for that reason) assert or imply a moral ‘ought.’ The second kind of judgment focuses on human excellence and the nature of the good life. These judgments employ as their most general terms "happiness," "excellence," and perhaps "flourishing" (in addition to "the good life"). For example: "Happiness requires activity and not mere passive consumption." "The good life includes pleasure, friendship, intellectual development and physical health." I take these to be the two general types of ethical judgment, and all particular ethical judgments to be examples of these. The main contention of this paper is that we must carefully distinguish these two types of judgments, and not try to understand the one as a special case of the other.
Many people have different views on the moral subject of good and evil or human nature. It is the contention of this paper that humans are born neutral, and if we are raised to be good, we will mature into good human beings. Once the element of evil is introduced into our minds, through socialization and the media, we then have the potential to do bad things. As a person grows up, they are ideally taught to be good and to do good things, but it is possible that the concept of evil can be presented to us. When this happens, we subconsciously choose whether or not to accept this evil. This where the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke become interesting as both men differed in the way they believed human nature to be. Hobbes and Locke both picture a different scene when they express human nature.
Graham, Jesse and Johnathan Haidt. 2011. The Social Psychology of Morality: Exploring the Causes of
Every human being carries with them a moral code of some kind. For some people it is a way of life, and they consult with their code before making any moral decision. However, for many their personal moral code is either undefined or unclear. Perhaps these people have a code of their own that they abide to, yet fail to recognize that it exists. What I hope to uncover with this paper is my moral theory, and how I apply it in my everyday life. What one does and what one wants to do are often not compatible. Doing what one wants to do would usually bring immediate happiness, but it may not benefit one in the long run. On the other hand, doing what one should do may cause immediate unhappiness, even if it is good for oneself. The whole purpose of morality is to do the right thing just for the sake of it. On my first paper, I did not know what moral theories where; now that I know I can say that these moral theories go in accordance with my moral code. These theories are utilitarianism, natural law theory, and kantianism.
In World War I France and Britain gained a lot of new land and resources when Germany suffered the most. The outcome in Eastern Europe led to communism and the United States joined World War I because of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1916 (Thompson). The sinking of the Lusitania killed 128 Americans (Ellis, Esler 468). The adults that have g...
One of the most persistently asked and perpetually unanswered questions in psychology is the question of morality. What is it, how does it develop, and where does it come from? A basic definition of morality is “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior” (Merriam-Webster). Based on the definition, the question then becomes even more complicated; How do people decide what is right and what is wrong? Research has examined this from many different angles, and two distinct schools of thought have emerged. One centers on the Lockian idea of children as blank slates who must be taught the difference between right and wrong and what it means to be moral, while the other espouses a more Chomskian perspective of a preset system of basic rules and guidelines that needs only to be activated. So what does this mean for humans and humanity? Are we born tabula rasa or are we born with an innate sense of good and evil? For those researching this topic, the question then becomes how to most effectively theorize, experiment and interpret human morality.
Often, a person is seen as the embodiment of the value of their action, thus a person can be seen as “good” or “bad,” and the consequences of justice that affect them are based on the general value of their general actions. The value given to actions is based on a soc...
Feinberg, Joel and Russ Shafer-Landau, eds. Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, 2002.
Overvold, Mark C. "Morality, Self-Interest, and Reasons for Being Moral." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 44.4 (1984): 493-507. JSTOR. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
To start off an example would be from the story The Voyage of the James Caird, “ The men were soaked to the bone and frostbitten.” This just proves that on their voyage there was no sign of them having a terrible weather until they actually got there. The weather was something that happened out of their control. Another example would be from the story To Build a Fire, “The old timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner.” Well even though this man didn’t take this advice seriously it’s normal for a person to want to achieve something on their own you can’t blame someone for that can you? No, however it is common in situations like these for a person to take advice very seriously. To conclude the claim why people shouldn’t be held accountable is for last example from the story The Cost of Survival, “Some people wind up in trouble because of bad luck, but others make dangerous choices.” Now this explains it all, there are two separate groups in which need to be treated differently because people with bad luck is better than having the problem be caused
Despite “doing the right thing,” there are things that can happen beyond our control that can alter the good results we were expecting. However, consequences are measurable and create lasting effects on people. Even though we may intend to do the right thing, a positive outcome is not guaranteed. Sometimes our actions do not just affect us personally, they can also have repercussions for other individuals, such as members of our families. Intentions, on the other hand, cannot always be determined. While someone might claim that they acted with good intentions, that is not always necessarily the
A majority of people would describe themselves as good and virtuous if asked to describe their personal character. Many would go on and describe the numerous occasions when they donated money to a charity, committed a random act of kindness to a stranger without being told to do so or chose not to lie. However, it is possible that people do not naturally act in such honorable ways, but are pushed to behave morally. With the fear of receiving negative consequences for wrongdoing, it is debatable whether people willing or naturally behave justly.
Everyday we are tested as individuals to make the right choice. How we view ourselves as individuals and how others view us are directly correlated to our moral decision-making. But morals are somewhat misleading. What might be a wrong decision for one person might be a solution to another. So how do we define morals? Do we follow Gods’ moral rules because to do so would increase out likelihood of obtaining salvation in the afterlife? Or is it simpler than that. Is God going to deny our entrance into heaven because we have run a stop sign here and there? No. I believe our moral values are much simpler than that. I believe that our moral decision-making comes from our upbringing of what is right or wrong. Our parents and the people we surround ourselves with, are, I believe, direct causes of how we make decisions. Having more positive family influences as we grow up to adults will better help us come to make the right decisions in tough situations. In this paper, I will take you through a situation where my morals were tested. It takes place in the northern woods of Vermont in a little town called St. Albans where a young boy transforms into a young man by controlling his emotions and making the right decision.